


The Blue Dragonfly

by mescalinen



Category: Original Work
Genre: Death, Gen, Near Death, Near Death Experiences, Post-War, Post-World War I, Soldiers, War, World War I, injuries, medics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-27
Updated: 2018-12-27
Packaged: 2019-09-28 10:43:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17181443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mescalinen/pseuds/mescalinen
Summary: Back in that first world war, in 1914, I had come to the Front as a war correspondent in the uniform of a nurse, and soon enough I found myself in battle.





	The Blue Dragonfly

    Back in that first world war, in 1914, I had come to the Front as a war correspondent in the uniform of a nurse, and soon enough I found myself in battle.

    I had been writing down all my impressions, but, I admit, that not one moment did the feeling of uselessness, and the inability to describe with my own word the terrible event that was happening around me, leave me. 

    I had been lifting the soldiers, bringing stretchers, placing the wounded... At those moments I would forget the writer in me, and that’s when I would suddenly, finally, see myself as a real person. And it was so joyous, that here, in the war, I was not only an author. 

    One time a dying soldier had whispered to me: „If only I could have water...”

    I had, without thinking further, ran for water. 

    He wouldn’t drink it, only repeat himself: „Water, water... spring...”

    I had finally understood him. 

    He was almost a boy, with shining eyes, with thin, trembling lips, that reflected the tremble of his soul. I had thought then, that there was no hope in saving him, and that the doctors would be helpless.

    I had explained to a nurse that we could still do something for the boy while he was still alive. We had taken a stretcher and brought the boy to a nearby forest spring. The nurse had dissapeared, and I was left with the dying boy on the banks of the creek.

    In the slanting rays of the evening sun, as if emanating from inside the plants, shined the tops of horsetails, the leaves of water lilies, and around the creek swirled a blue dragonfly. And very close to us, where the creek ended, streams of a spring, rushing through pebbles, sang their usual beautiful songs.

    The wounded boy had listened, his eyes closed, his bloodless lips trembling, expressing a strong struggle. And so the struggle had ended in a sweet, childish smile, and his eyes opened.

    „Thank you,” he had whispered.

    As he had noticed the blue dragonfly, he smiled one more time, thanked me again, and closed his eyes.

    Some time had passed in silence, when suddenly the lips had started trembling again, and the struggle restarted.

     „Does she still fly?” 

    The blue dragonfly had kept circling.

    „She still does!” I had answered.

    He had smiled again, then his eyes seemed distant in thought.

    At that moment I, too, had fallen into the depths of my own thoughts. Then I had heard him question again:

    „Still flying?”

    „Flying, flying,” I had answered mechanically, not looking at the dragonfly, not thinking.

    „Then why can I not see her?” he had asked, opening his eyes with problem.

    I had then been frightened. I had never before seen a man who had lost his vision before his death, but yet who was speaking clearly. Could it have been, that his eyes had died before him? But when I had looked at the place where the dragonfly once circled, I saw nothing.

    The wounded had understood that I had lied to him. He had sighed, dissapointed in the loss of my attention, and silently closed his eyes.

    I had been hurt, but then I noticed the reflection of the circling dragonfly in the water. We couldn’t have seen it because of the darkening background of the forest, but the water — these eyes of the earth always stay light, even when it is dark. It is as if these eyes can see in the dark.

    „She’s flying, still flying!” I had exclaimed so decisively, with such joy, that the wounded immediately opened his eyes.

    And I had showed him the reflection.

    And he had smiled.

 


End file.
